Residential

For decades, the concept of comfort has simply been associated with an adequate temperature in the household during cold weathers' seasons. Today, the situation has changed a lot: in the home you want to have an ideal climate all year round, you want to control the relative humidity and, more than in the past, you also pay attention to the quality of the air in the indoors. Newly built houses and houses that have undergone major renovation are now well insulated from heat, cold and external noise. At the same time, air renewal systems with energy recovery are spreading, which positively influence the energy performance of the building, allowing a higher classification.  The advantages in terms of energy consumption are considerable and the automation and control systems for residential buildings enable the regulation of climate and air quality. The ease of use of the automation system at home is also considered an essential part of the quality of living. To meet this requirement, push-button controls with adequately sized keys are designed, completed with symbols and signalling LEDs lights, powered by very low voltage - and therefore intrinsically safer - which can be made of valuable materials and pleasant to the touch.  These are supported by home control via smartphone apps and voice commands for home speakers, two new opportunities offered by home automation that greatly simplify everyday life.

Adriano Lovera's article of February 2018 on Il Sole 24ore (”La casa domotica vale il 10% in più”) confirms what was already known from the common experience: when you build or renovate and install a home automation system, the price of the house is higher than that of similar residential units, but equipped only with the traditional installation system. As Lovera points out, technology and comfort in the home are no longer just an option, but a winning element in the real estate market. From an analysis carried out on some specialised portals, it is found that at least a quarter of the requests for quotes received concerns home automation devices and 24% of new owners, who renovate the house after purchase, includes at least one home automation element. From the real cases examined in the new construction sector, it is clear that home automation is now included in both high-end projects and lower budget ones. To verify the advantage in the case of renovation, Lovera has instead examined dozens of ads published on a portal of real estate brokerage for residential units in Milan, Rome and in medium towns such as Treviso and Parma. The result? The sale price is in all cases in the highest range, compared to the average calculated by the portal for directly comparable apartments. The advantage is between 8 and 12%, but with peaks that are close to 30%. The conclusion of Lovera: home automation is now an essential aspect for those who face a real estate investment.

Controlling light dynamically can make a major contribution to people's well-being. After all, the reason is simple: in thousands of years of evolution, the human being has become accustomed to the light of the sun, which varies naturally during the day, both in terms of brightness and colour shades. In the morning, natural light tends to be cold, while in the afternoon it gradually takes on warmer tones. But contemporary life is mostly spent inside buildings and only a small part of it outside. Thanks to LED lights and the variety of lighting fixtures - which can emit intense or diffused light and above all to home automation control, today the lighting can be adjusted at will in terms of light intensity and colour and can change dynamically at different moments during the day. This makes it possible to replicate natural conditions inside the home, offering people environmental conditions closer to their biological needs. How does dynamically controlled lighting work? In the morning, the light must facilitate the awakening, so the ideal is a cold white light that promotes the production of cortisol. With home automation control it is also possible to gradually increase the brightness before the alarm clock time, contributing to a more natural awakening. As the hours go by, cold white light can take on higher levels of intensity, just like the outside world, promoting concentration and activity. In the late afternoon and evening, the lighting should instead relax and prepare for night-time rest, so a warm, soft white light with prevailing red components and very limited blue components is ideal, which helps the body to produce the Melatonin. The positive effects of dynamic light can also be particularly useful in the winter months and in the seasonal changes that some people particularly suffer from.

The Ecobonus for home automation is a national measure to encourage home automation that was originally introduced by Law No 208 of 2015. Since it was confirmed by the Budget Law promulgated at the end of 2018, it can also be used in the case of expenses incurred in 2019. The measure is very interesting for those who build a home automation system, because it allows to deduct with a rate of 65% those solutions that increase the efficiency of the heating system and inform end users about their consumption. The Ecobonus focuses on those parts of the home systems that are traditionally responsible for most of the energy consumption: heating and domestic water production are in fact worth an average of 80% of domestic energy consumption. What does the Law* say about Ecobonus for home automation? For expenses incurred between 1 January and 31 December 2019, there is a deduction for the purchase, installation and putting into service of multimedia devices for remote control of heating systems, hot water production or air conditioning of housing units, aimed at increasing awareness of energy consumption by users and to ensure more efficient operation of the systems. The deduction is made to the extent of 65% of the total amount spent. These multimedia devices must have specific characteristics. In particular: They must allow remote switching on, off and weekly programming of the systems; They must indicate, through multimedia channels, energy consumption, through the periodic supply of data; They must show the current operating conditions and the control temperature of the systems. The measure facilitates, in addition to the supply and installation of all equipment (electrical, electronic and mechanical), the electrical and masonry works necessary for the installation and operation of building automation systems inside buildings for the control and monitoring of thermal systems. * Law no. 145 of 30 December 2018: State budget for the financial year 2019 and multi-year budget for the three-year period 2019-2021 (recalls Law no. 208 of 2015).

When it comes to air quality, we generally think of the external environment, because of the polluting and climate-altering emissions caused by production activities, vehicle traffic or the winter heating of buildings. But today we are aware that problems of poor air quality can arise even in closed environments, caused by pollutants from both inside and outside the building and by the increase in the concentration of CO2 due to human presence. This aspect should not be underestimated, since in Europe, on average, more than 90% of our time is spent indoors: in Italy, for example, 55% in homes, 33% in work environments, 4% in other environments, while only a residual percentage of time is spent outdoors. A very timely topic, as confirmed by the article by Alice Vigna in the Corriere Salute supplement of Corriere della Sera (”The ”smog” hidden at home, in the office and also at school”, 19 September 2019). If exposure to pollutants becomes very prolonged over time, the problem is no longer just one of environmental well-being, but can also seriously affect people's health. Ensuring a high quality of air in the home is therefore a necessity. This can be helped by the control of ventilation by means of home automation, which enables high air quality and energy efficiency to be achieved at the same time.